led apace,
and look not behind them;
For fear is round about, saith Jehovah.
Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty men escape;
They shall stumble and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates.
Who is this that cometh up as a flood [like the Nile],
whose waters are moved as the rivers?
Egypt rises up as a flood [like the Nile],
and his waters are moved as the rivers;
And he saith, I will go up, and I will cover the earth;
I will destroy the city, with its inhabitants.
Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots;
and let the mighty men come forth;
Cush and Phut, that handle the shield,
and Lud that handles and bends the bow.
For this is the day of the Lord, the Lord of hosts,
a day of vengeance, that he may smite his foes;
And the sword shall devour, and be made satiate and drunk with blood;
For the Lord, the Lord of Hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country,
by the river Euphrates.
Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt!
In vain shalt thou use many medicines; to thee no cure shall come.
The nations have heard of thy shame, and thy cry hath filled the land;
For the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty,
and both are fallen together."[29]

The disaster was utter, complete, not to be remedied--the only thing to
be done was to "fly apace," to put the desert and the Nile between the
vanquished and the victors, and to deprecate the conqueror's anger by
submission. Neco gave up the contest, evacuated Syria and Palestine, and
hastily sought the shelter of his own land, whither Nebuchadnezzar would
probably have speedily followed him, had not news arrived of his
father's, Nabopolassar's, death. To secure the succession, he had to
return, as quickly as he could, to Babylon, and to allow the Egyptian
monarch, at any rate, a breathing space.

Thus ended the dream of the recovery of an Asiatic Empire, which
Psamatik may have cherished, and of which Neco attempted the
realization. The defeat of Carchemish shattered the unsubstantial fabric
into atoms, and gave a death-blow to hopes which no Pharaoh ever
entertained afterwards.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Jeremiah xlvi. 3-12.

XXIII.

THE LATER SAITE KINGS.--PSAMATIK II., APRIES, AND AMASIS.

The Saitic revival in art and architecture, in commercial and general
prosperity, which Psamatik the First inaugurated, continued unde